The Green Gene

by Peter Dickinson, Unknown

Book by Peter Dickinson

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL was a prolific English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories.

Peter Dickinson lived in Hampshire with his second wife, author Robin McKinley. He wrote more than fifty novels for adults and young readers. He won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Award twice, and his novel The Blue Hawk won The Guardian Award in 1975.

Reviews

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

From today's perspective, writing a book about an alternate-universe England in which Celts with green skin are assigned to a lesser status in an apartheid-like system seems a bit strange, but in the '70s opposition to apartheid wouldn't have been as much of a common-sense position as it is now, in which case the premise would pack more of a punch. The more interesting choices for today's reader have to do with our protagonist, P.P Humayan, an Indian genetic researcher brought to England to study the titular gene. For one thing, he is not an anti-hero but an un-hero. He dislikes what he sees of the apartheid system -- helped by the fact that, although he is automatically on the right side of the green/non-green racial divide, and has an ID card indicating that he is Saxon to prove it, there is still prejudice against Indians in England -- but his choice to help out the Celtic resistance faction that ends up holding him prisoner is largely based on self-preservation and his personal animus towards his boss, whom he has come to understand is an important figure in the British security services. Plus, he is in some ways an unpleasant person, not in a cool badass kind of way but just in the ordinary way of someone who, while not a wholly bad person, can nonetheless be a jerk and a pig. Dickinson also does a good job of making Humayan's belief in witchcraft sit next to his impressive technical education without seeming to conflict at all, or making him seem like a superstitious fool. Plus, Dickinson puts his mystery-writer skills to good work in dealing with the spy vs. spy mechanics of the plot: there is a puzzle to piece together, even if "The Green Gene" is not really a mystery. Still, the premise seems very much of its time, in a way that's not true of those of Dickinson's books that stick closer to (or, in the case of the Changes trilogy, get further away from) reality.

[Alien]

(Alte Wertung: Nicht schlecht, vor allem am Anfang. Dann nachlassend. Nicht soo witzig aber auch nicht ernst. 2-3)

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the few Peter Dickinson books I had not read.

An imagined time when Britain is divided along racial lines, in this case the underclass is peopled by Celts. A gene mutation has rendered some of them green, and over time a surge in such births occurs. The Saxon ruling class claims the Greens have characteristics such as laziness, alcoholism, drug abuse, and employs them in menial jobs, excluding them from certain establishments and services. Rebellion is in the air, manifested by bombings and other violence, and the Green culture and music has a certain prestige among some of the establishment youth. The Saxon class is worried.

An Indian medical statistician has found a possible way to predict the periodic surges in Green births, and a Saxon research firm has imported him to continue his research. The firm lavishes a generous salary on this brown-skinned man and attaches a Saxon designation to his ID so he might avoid discrimination and enjoy the privileges of that class. But once on the ground, Mr. P. P. Humayan receives a jarring education in the culture, and mayhem ensues, including subterfuge, kidnapping, and killings.

Not the most subtle of stories, and not my favorite of Dickinson's books.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another novel I read years ago. It's set in a parallel universe, in the early 1970's but where Celts are green skinned. It's an interesting novel, and shows up a mirror to society of the time that it was written. I liked the hero.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and not really scifi at all.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/62100.html[return][return]I had read a few of Peter Dickinson's books a long time ago (Annerton Pit and Tulku) and of course remember the Changes TV adaptation from when I was very small. I'd also much more recently read his King and Joker, an alternate history centring around the adventures of the British Royal Family in the early 1970s - a much saner set of royals than the real ones, as it turns out, despite their unusual domestic arrangements.[return][return]This one, of course, hit my radar screen because of the Irish angle. As the author's own description makes clear, it describes an England where Celts are visibly green-skinned and therefore face discrimination. A lot of the 1970s neuroses are there - for instance, Celtic terrorists bomb Harrod's, something that didn't happen in real life until 1983, ten years after the book had been written - indeed I think the only casualties of the IRA campaign in England at the time the book was published were the five kitchen staff and a chaplain killed at the Aldershot barracks in February 1972. A lot of the satire is spot-on. The girl who our hero eventually ends up with describes herself as a "latter day Satanist". Enoch Powell is reincarnated as a dangerous Welsh radical. The whole of Ireland got independence in 1921 but England remains swamped by "pickles" from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They control the music scene and London youth rocks to rhythm-and-pibroch.[return][return]The one point where I felt the book lost its edge was in its portrayal of the Celts themselves, especially (for some reason) the Welsh. Shaw sails pretty close to the wind in John Bull's Other Island and is only really forgiven because his most over-the-top Oirish character turns out to have been "Born in Glasgow. Never was in Ireland in his life." I don't think Dickinson would have dared to depict black South Africans in the same way as he does the stupid, alcoholic, squabbling Celtic terrorists in this book. (I've always felt the best commentary on this period of history - whether your paramilitaries are Irish or Palestinian - is Monty Python's Life Of Brian, especially Scene 7 and Scene 10.)[return][return]But the author redeems himself considerably by having his central character a confused, randy, Indian mathematical genius who has been declared an honorary "Saxon" for political purposes. It's a good book, though a book of its time, and I'm surprised it isn't better known.

[Joseph DeBolt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pravandragasharatipili (Pete) Humanyan, a demographic statistician from India on loan to England, has discovered that the "green gene," a euphemism for melanin element in the skin of nonwhite races, has appeared as a dominant in a significant percentage of births to parents of supposedly pure Caucasian stock. Black babies are being born to white parents. It is nature's way of combating skin cancer in whites. But in a viciously racist Great Britain of the not-too-distant future, the appearance of the gene causes chaos, especially because it signifies ancestors of England's race-proud whites were black. Story's end: revolution in progress. Compare Christopher Priest's Darkening Island. Campbell Award nominee, 1974.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprisingly undated computer themes

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started slow. I almost stopped reading, n=but persevered. It was well worth it. A good story, well written and full of surprises.

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Das gruene Gen